Allentown Classic Motor Cars would use it to 'exercise' 80-car collection on city's east side.

February 12, 2013|By Emily Opilo, Of The Morning Call

Think of it as Matchbox cars for adults.

Thats how Keith Flickinger, curator of one of Allentown's most renowned classic car collections, described a proposal to create a private driving track on the former site of a drive-in theater.

The plans, which were presented Tuesday to the Allentown Planning Commission, call for a mile-long track to crisscross a more than 20-acre green space just off Union Boulevard on the city's east side. Allentown Classic Motor Cars, a private group with several buildings on the site's N. Fenwick Street side, would use the track to "exercise" its approximately 80-car collection, officials said.

"It's like when you were a kid," Flickinger said. "You'd take your case out in your yard, and you'd build a road and you'd play with your Matchboxes. When you're a grown up, you play with life-sized cars — if you have the funds to do it."

The vehicles, which were built between the 1920s and 1950s, are street legal, but the track would allow them to be driven without the hazard of other traffic, attorney Richard Somach said. The track wouldn't be a race track, but instead a network of roads designed to test and maintain the cars, he said.

"This is not going to become some Pocono Raceway," Somach said.

The car collection, managed by Allentown Classic Motor Cars, was built by Nicola Bulgari, a member of the family behind Italian luxury jewelry brand Bulgari. The collection includes a 1932 Cadillac limousine and the 1930 GMC Yellow Cab featured in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

While Bulgari's cars are a private collection, they are frequently loaned and displayed at Allentown's America on Wheels museum and other events. Several of Bulgari's cars are currently on display at the museum.

In addition to creating a driving track, Allentown Classic Motor Cars would plant several hundred trees and maintain the drive-in movie screen and equipment on the Union Boulevard site to be used by the collection's owner and visitors.

"Old movies with old cars," Somach said.

County records show that Allentown Classic Motor Cars has been collecting properties for at least a decade on the proposed track site, which is bordered by Union Boulevard to the north, N. Fenwick Street and N. Ellsworth Street to the east and west and E. James Street to the south.

Planning commission members tabled the proposal Tuesday to wait for the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission to weigh in, but there were no serious objections to the proposal. Michael Hefele, city planner, said the proposal is unique but would not require a zoning change. It's currently zoned business/light industrial.

"It's really accessory to how the current site is being used," he said. "It's not commercial or recreational by any means. It's for personal use only."

Commissioners recommended that the site's engineer speak to the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Department of Environmental Development about a water culvert on the site. Officials will have to determine whose jurisdiction the waterway is in before moving forward.